International Law and its Relationship to Trade, Environment and Sovereingty

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2012 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: A, , course: LAW, language: English, abstract: We must spare no effort to free all of humanity, and above all our children andgrandchildren, from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by humanactivities, and whose resources would no longer be sufficient for their needs(United Nations Millennium Declaration, GA Res. 55/2).Since the increasing pressure on '' fair trade'' emphasized by massive streetdemonstrations at the 1999 Ministerial Conference in Seattle, the World TradeOrganization( WTO) has had to face new objectives raised by political, religiousand ideological interests, labor, animal and women's right. The environmentalissue has moved beyond local and even national boundaries into the foreignpolicy debate, since actions in one country have had adverse environmentaleffects on another. As a consequence, public interests has intensified, in thelight of high profile trade and environmental concerns that extends into someof these new sensitive areas such as the role of science in risk assessment, theconservation of endangered species, the cross border movement of geneticallymodified organisms( GMOs) and measures to protect public health.Economists, lawyers and environmentalists have called for internationalagreements, which abrogate national sovereignty and delegate foreign policy tointernational agreements. Trade and environmental issues have come to theforefront of foreign policy, challenging and reshaping traditional interactionsbetween trade and environment. Varieties of demands on the growing lists oftrade and environmental issues have driven international treaties andagreements, which seem to have high costs with low benefits or '' a chillingeffect'' (Conca, 2000).Due to new problems and demands, the density of international institutionshas risen in the new world order. With increasing numbers of international treaties and organizations, different international norms have become moreintrusive on each other. This proposal seeks to study'' international law and itsrelationship to trade, environment and sovereignty, with focus on CartagenaProtocol on Biosafety'' as a case study to ''evaluate a principle researchquestion: what are the contradictions between different approaches towards theenvironment of the WTO and multilateral environmental agreement (MEAs)? Theaim of the case study is to find general contradictions between the WTO andMEAs and to analyze the overlap issues between different sets of multilateralagreements. [...]